Brad Simon

With the explosion of Social Media over the last few years it has become more and more difficult to reach your target audience simply by posting to your page and trusting organic reach to do the rest. Today you must include at least some paid advertising to get your message out and seen by potential customers.

Social Media Advertising has come a long way in a relatively short period of time. In just a few short years online advertising has become an essential part of any business’ marketing plan, and Social Networks are today the preferred online advertising media.

Instead of waiting for consumers to get around to preforming a search before they make a purchase, Social Media Advertising helps businesses find new potential clients by using users’ shared information to identify interest. Rather than reactively targeting users who search a certain term, Social Media Advertising proactively targets relevant users before they even begin their search.

Social Media Advertising isn’t just a buzzword anymore. It’s a real, tangible driver of leads and sales, and companies are increasing their social ad spend across the board in response. Social networks are filled with hundreds of millions of consumers. Why wouldn’t you want to take advantage?

The world’s most popular social networking platforms certainly have changed over the years, and they will undoubtedly continue to change as time moves forward. Old social networks will die, and popular ones will be forced to evolve as fresh new options appear with innovative technology. We have moved on from the days of MySpace to a social media era now dominated by all sorts of social mobile apps.

In today’s business world, Social Media Marketing is a strategy that no company can afford to ignore. As we discussed last week there are distinct advantages to incorporate Social Media Advertising Campaigns into your overall marketing plan. However, with new Social Media platforms popping up every day, it is difficult to decide which networks your company should spend the energy and money on to maximize your marketing efforts.

Unless you have been living under a rock the past few years, you know about the popularity of social media websites and mobile apps. More time is spent on mobile phones reading and posting to social media channels than playing games, or texting and making phone calls.

In October, Instagram finally allowed all businesses to place Paid Ads into the Newsfeed of their users. For the past two years, Instagram has only allowed a select few companies with massive marketing budgets to advertise on their platform.

Fortune magazine stated: “The potential is huge because, unlike many mobile advertising platforms, Instagram has the ability to target its ads to very specific audiences using technology and data from its parent company, Facebook.”